Don’t Look for the Resurrected Villainess - Chapter 263

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Side Story 7

Mother, who had been looking at me with disbelieving eyes, slowly came down from the bed.

“Anelli, you…”

Her eyes, which had widened in surprise, gradually filled with fierce emotion. It was anger.

“How dare you!”

Unlike Father, Mother immediately expressed her anger. It was exactly the reaction I had imagined.

“How dare you, what shamelessness!”

“What shamelessness is needed to come this far.”

“You!”

Mother burst into angry shouts. However, her voice was neither as vigorous nor as sharp as before. It was more like she was forcing out what little strength she had left and struggling desperately.

It wasn’t threatening or frightening at all.

“You’re still the same. It’s been quite some time since you were imprisoned.”

Mother glared at me with a face flushed red as if she had been insulted to her face. Her ragged breathing was clearly audible to me.

“Indeed, befitting the former Duchess of Roam.”

The subject of what the guards had mentioned – ‘It’s been ages since her title was stripped, yet she still talks such nonsense?’ – must have been Mother.

Thinking of the Mother I knew, it wasn’t particularly strange. Mother was someone who had always lived displaying her high status wherever and whenever.

Just because she had fallen to this state didn’t mean her attitude would change overnight.

“Are you satisfied now, mocking your mother like this?”

“It wasn’t mockery but admiration. Honestly, this place isn’t such an easy environment where you can act arrogantly forever.”

I glanced around the interior of Mother’s prison. The inside was identical to Father’s prison.

An old chair, an old desk, and a hard wooden bed. A small jar prepared separately for relieving oneself.

It was an environment that a noble aristocrat couldn’t properly endure for even a day. Especially for a proud noble like Mother, it would be even more humiliating.

“How shameless, when you’re the one who drove the entire family into danger!”

“I never expected to hear such words from Mother’s mouth.”

I muttered dryly and tilted my head sideways.

“I was the one who was pushed into danger first.”

“How can you be so selfish, thinking only of your own pain? Your situation was a sacrifice for the family!”

“So how did my sacrifice help the family?”

Instead, it only created an avatar of revenge that would lead the charge in destroying the family.

At my question, Mother seemed at a loss for words and closed her mouth. Even so, her eyes that continued to glare at me were filled with strength.

To my eyes, it looked like Mother’s last remaining pride. The obstinacy she had raised up because she couldn’t bear to show a broken appearance even in this situation.

“I’m curious, Mother.”

Seeing Mother’s desperate pride, I suddenly felt puzzled.

“Even I think I was an excellent candidate for empress that you created.”

Until Lilia appeared, I was like that. Even I thought I was truly perfect. A flawlessly prepared prospective empress with no faults to be found.

And it was Mother who created that. While Father was making Prisian Sister into the perfect heir of Roam, Mother was making me into a prospective empress.

But why did she do that?

“I wasn’t so… terrible that I deserved to be replaced by someone else.”

It wasn’t that I regretted that position now. I was just curious. Why did she do that to me?

Why did I have to be pushed into such a situation?

No matter how Lilia appeared with Birth backing her, no matter how everyone was unconsciously influenced by the threads of fate.

Still, shouldn’t Mother, who had directly raised me, have had at least a moment’s hesitation?

“So why did you do it?”

Mother’s eyes shook greatly. Her tightly pressed lips were bloodlessly pale.

“Why did you abandon me so easily?”

“…What do you want to hear?”

What I heard after waiting was a twisted question in return. Mother, who had forced her trembling lips into a smile, strode toward me.

“Do you want me to say I regret everything and plead tearfully?”

Her posture with straight back and head held high was exactly the same as I had always seen.

“Whatever I say now, could it change this situation?”

“Of course not.”

“Right, but do you still want to hear a flowery apology from this mother’s mouth?”

“As you say…”

I began speaking in a calm tone and gazed intently at Mother who had come close. The face of Mother, who was once famous for her beauty just like Father.

A woman who had triumphed as the queen of high society, whom everyone believed would naturally become empress without doubt.

My great Mother, who Duke of Roam had supposedly brought to Roam Estate only after kneeling and desperately begging.

“Because you’re my mother.”

And I had been evaluated as closely resembling such a Mother.

“Because you are my mother, I was just curious. You gave birth to me yourself and carefully raised me as a doll to fulfill your dreams in your place, yet you abandoned me so easily.”

As my dry voice continued, Mother’s complexion also grew pale. She must have been gritting her teeth, as Mother’s jawbone protruded prominently.

“Yes, I raised you perfectly. You were truly a child who resembled me closely.”

“Yes, I was.”

Seeing how I was calmly facing my imprisoned parents like this, perhaps even now I am a daughter who closely resembles Mother. Someone who prioritizes her own safety and goals over the name of family.

“That’s why I did it.”

A cold voice reached my ears as I was briefly lost in thought. When I looked up, Mother’s distorted face came into view at once.

“Because I couldn’t bear to watch you, who resembled me so closely, fall apart.”

Mother had a very… humiliating expression.

“Because I couldn’t bear to watch you cling pathetically while being mocked by everyone, I gave you one last chance to sacrifice your life for the family.”

She was packaging my death that way until the end. I wasn’t surprised.

“That’s quite an interesting thing to say.”

“You were the one who became the laughingstock of all high society because of your ridiculous love talk. If you were going to bring him down like this anyway, because of such shallow emotions!”

Mother was the one who had settled into Roam because of ridiculous love talk. Father had spent his lifetime elevating Roam’s name for such a Mother, but…

Vaguely, I could gauge what Mother’s heart was like. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant realization.

“Listening to this, I think I was wrong.”

I shrugged my shoulders as I calmly lowered my gaze. Mother, who had been breathing roughly, frowned and looked at me suspiciously.

I smiled slightly at such a Mother.

“I don’t resemble you, Mother. Fortunately.”

“What?”

“I’m still doing ridiculous love talk. Of course, this time I chose a proper man.”

Confused emotions appeared in Mother’s eyes. Suddenly thinking of something, Mother asked urgently with a changed expression.

“Don’t tell me you mean Prince Heinley? Are you engaged to him?”

“Ha, Mother…”

It was fitting for someone who had considered the empress position a lifelong regret. To think of Heinrih at this moment.

I swept up my bangs and answered in a somewhat bored tone.

“I’m a Reviver, so what use is being empress to me? Such a position would only be bothersome to me now.”

I could receive more noble treatment than anyone else with just my name alone. Without needing to rely on power or status.

At my words, Mother looked at me with confused eyes.

“Then who on earth…”

Mother probably couldn’t imagine it. Honestly, by Mother’s standards, Jeon fell short in everything except status.

Even his position as heir to the Mage Tower Lord, she would think could only be acknowledged after he became an official Mage Tower Lord.

So how could she imagine? That the object of my love talk was a timid and shy but romantic mage who could die for me.

“As I told you, he’s a proper man. However, I can’t show him to you. I don’t want to show him anything that might worry him unnecessarily. He’s a tender-hearted man who might cry.”

Perhaps understanding my voice filled with laughter as mockery, Mother’s expression hardened. Maybe she judged that I was mocking her by assuming a non-existent target.

“So you’re going to keep your parents locked up in a place like this and live well by yourself?”

Mother’s voice was again filled with reproach. However, it stirred no emotion in me.

“If you came out of there, what could you do?”

When I asked calmly, Mother lost her words and fell silent.

“Roam is gone, Mother. That means there’s no place for you to return to out there.”

I didn’t think Mother was unaware of this. The reason she was raising her voice at me like this was because there was nothing she could do.

Because there was nothing left. Because she still couldn’t bring herself to beg me. To preserve her lofty pride at least.

I quietly stepped back. There was no point in asking how Mother was feeling.

Even without asking, I could tell everything about how Mother was doing now, what kind of heart she was living with.

“Rest in peace.”

To offer a greeting of peace when I was the one who made her a criminal in the first place. Even I thought my words were contradictory, but I couldn’t find better words than these for a final farewell.

It was the moment I was about to turn my back first. A sudden call burst out from beyond the iron bars.

“Anelli!”

Mother, who had urgently called out to stop me, trembled her lips.

“I have a request for you. This is the first and last plea I’ll make.”

When I stopped my departing steps and quietly gazed at Mother, she swallowed dry saliva and contorted her face.

She seemed to feel great shame in asking me for something. Or perhaps the request she was about to make would crumple Mother’s pride.

“Give me poison.”

Her low voice was somewhat pitiful.

“Give me poison.”

All the exaggerated anger and hatred disappeared from Mother’s face. What remained in the place they left was only the desperation to end this entire situation.

The Mother who had raised her voice loud enough for the guards to murmur, crying out about past glory, had been nothing but an illusion.

I could understand Mother’s heart. Because I had been the same way.

So there was no need to think deeply about it.

“Why would I show such mercy?”

When I tilted my head and calmly asked back, Mother’s lips twitched. But no other words came out.

I spoke to my despairing Mother.

“Don’t worry, Mother. It will end someday.”

I moved my lips while wearing the most gentle smile I could manage. Praying that it would sound like sincere advice from someone with experience.

“Because life is finite for everyone.”

Of course, I was an exception.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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